In computer systems, and in particular in data management systems that provide management of real world objects, such as items, products, facilities, materials, machines, and others, the real world objects can be processed electronically using business objects. The business objects can represent the real world objects using data structures. The structures can comprise classes that carry properties. Classes can be used to organize real world objects into certain categories. Within the business objects, relevant information of the real world objects may be stored within properties. Using the business objects and their properties allows simulating real world processes within computer systems. Further, production data, sales data, quality management data, purchasing data, and any other information available within a company can be represented within the data management system using the different business objects.
It may be necessary for processes or applications within the data management systems to classify the objects they use. Classification may be useful, for instance, in a catalogue, for batch determination, configuration, or the planning of a marketing campaign. In addition, classification can be helpful for production planning, quality management, sales management, computer-aided manufacturing, computer-aided design, and any other business tasks. When classifying objects, these objects can be allocated to certain classes. The properties of the classes can be valuated, which is the act of setting a value, for the particular object. The class can represent generic attributes of all objects within the class. For instance, capstan screws and slotted screws may be classified as screws. This generic information can be used for classifying all screws. Properties can represent certain attributes of objects, for instance, the color of an object.
Objects may need to be classified according to classification standards. For example, classification standards can allow communication between different business partners, e.g., different data management systems. Classification standards provide certain classes with certain properties to be used for classification of business objects. For instance, a classification standard, for example eCl@ss, can be used. To allow communication of classified objects between two systems, it may be necessary to agree bilaterally between two systems which classification standard to use. However, a general standard can prevent using properties and values required to describe the object sufficiently because these properties might not be available within the agreed standard.
In addition, it may be necessary that a certain object needs to be classified for different purposes. For instance, products and materials can be used within many different business processes. Each of these business processes can have different requirements concerning the classification of the objects it uses. For instance, for production it can be helpful to know the type of a screw, e.g., whether it is a capstan or a slotted screw. However, quality management systems might need different information about the screws, for instance, whether these are stainless or made from certain materials. Quality management thus requires different classification of the screws than production management.
Thus, a classification tool or engine can be required to support the use of an object's classification by several different processes. When different applications or processes share different object classifications, properties, classes, class hierarchies, and class networks may need to be shared across the different applications or processes. Class allocations and property valuations of the resulting object classification may also be required to be shared among the several different processes.
It may be necessary to allow controlling whether a certain application or process is allowed to change a certain allocation of an object to a class or a certain valuation of a property. In addition, the valuation of properties of objects is required to be unique, i.e., the color of a particular material needs to be consistent within all applications and processes. Otherwise, the properties of an object used by a first application might not correspond to an object's properties used in a second application or even with the real world object. On the other hand, different valuations for properties of a single object might lead to ambiguous communication of objects between different applications.